


and winter turns into spring

by jemmasimmmons



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Free Verse, Gen, i guess this counts as angst, melinda may finding kids in the most unexpected of places
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-17
Updated: 2015-04-17
Packaged: 2018-03-23 10:56:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,268
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3765538
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jemmasimmmons/pseuds/jemmasimmmons
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Two of them had been her choice. The third had chosen her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	and winter turns into spring

**Author's Note:**

> So, this was something very new for me! I've never written for May before, and I really hope I have managed to do her justice.
> 
> Basically, I really got into her head after 2x17 and I have always loved the relationships she had with the kids on the Bus, so this ended up being written in a daze last night and got edited this evening. I hope you like it!

 

 

She hadn't always wanted kids.

For the longest time, she had even been adamant that she _didn't_ want them. With the kind of lifestyle she had chosen, it didn't exactly leave much room for parents evenings and finger painting and baking cookies until the kitchen smelt like vanilla and cinnamon.

_Besides_ , she would say to Andrew whenever he brought the conversation came up, _what kind of mother would I be if I had to keep disappearing to save the world every Tuesday night?_

_A good one_ , he would always say, coming up behind her to nuzzle her neck. _You'd be the best, Melinda._

_And I suppose you'd be happy enough to clean up the dirty nappies while I was gone?_ She would retort.

When he didn't answer, she would laugh and lean back into him, writhing in his arms as he tickled her sides and kissed the top of her spine and, as far as she was concerned, that would be conversation over.

But the sun comes up after the moon every night, and winter turns into spring and feelings can change.

One day, she said to him, _I want to have a baby_.

He had hesitated for only a second before replying. _Okay_. He had taken two strides over to her and kissed the top of her head before repeating the word, softly into her hair. _Okay_.

And that had been that.

 

 

She thought about it a lot.

Of course, she reasoned as she sat daydreaming in Phil's car while he prattled on about protocols and initiatives at her elbow (she didn't need to listen to that, she knew it all already), there was a lot to think about.

Already, she had an idea of what they would look like, this baby she was yet to make. Their features swam in front of her mind like whisps of smoke that, on occasion, she would be able to grasp at and marvel upon.

Skin that felt like rose petals when you laid your fingers on it, skin the colour of a swirl of milk in a cup of coffee. Curls of black hair that twisted into tufts sticking up from their head. And always the eyes, large dark eyes looking up at her from the depths of her imagination, eyes that crinkled in the corners with laughter and seemed to shine with all the wonder of the universe inside them.

_Angel eyes_.

The image was so real she could have sworn they would be right in front of her if she opened her own eyes wide enough.

What was less clear, however, was what the baby would be like.

They might be like Andrew: calm, collected, smart. They might like reading and gardening, and want to question people they met on their favourite colour, what they had for dinner and whether or not they thought unicorns existed.

If they were like Andrew, they would be beautiful.

Or, they might be more like her, wanting to fill every minute of every day. They might want to be climbing trees and diving in at the deep end, their heart racing in their chests and the adrenaline burning in their veins.

They would be beautiful if they were like that too. Or so she hoped.

But then, she would think, resting her head against the window and watching the scenery roll by, they might be something completely different. Unexpected. They might be a Broadway star, or an astronaut or even a rocket scientist.

(Whatever they were going to be, however, they most certainly were not going to be a hellraiser.

Not in her house.)

 

But things never turn out the way we want them to.

That day happened.

The world around her changed.

She changed.

And they could never go back to how they had been before. So.

 

 

The images were still there, drifting through her mind like dusty photographs recovered from an old attic from long ago. But every time she called them to mind, they changed until the soft skin was matted with tears and the black curls grew long and glossy and the eyes full of wonder became hard and icy cold.

_I want to feel your pain._

_Have it_ , she would think, her teeth gritted so hard her jaw began to ache permanently, her fingernails clenched into such tight fists they drew blood from the palms of her hands. _Have it all. Take it away, I don't want it._

But she couldn't take it away, not that one little girl who had held so much darkness in such a small body before it had been released with a single bullet and a tiny gasp of air. No one could take that pain away.

So she had to do it for herself.

She began by taking herself away. The less people she was around, the less people she could hurt. Or at least, that was the theory.

Her transfer request was accepted with minimal protestation. Few people tried to talk her out of it, and those who did were usually silenced with a single look. She had that power now, a power she hadn't had before. The power of a legend, she thought bitterly.

Phil never once questioned her, not like she thought he would. He gave her space and yet was always there when she turned around, watching her with careful concern all over his face. That hurt too. Hurt like hell.

_You know, I'm here_ , he would say every so often.

_I know._

_If you want to talk..._

_I don't._

_..._

_Alright._

She never let herself cry with him again, not after that night. She knew he was expecting her to,  _wanted_ her to even, but she didn't. Tears were useless now. They were salt water; salt to a wound. He would sit with her in silence for a long, long time.

Her hand recoiled from Andrew's whenever he brought it near to hers, her fingers jerking away from his like they might set him alight and make him burn along with her. She shrank from his arms, ducked away from his embrace and after a long time, he stopped trying. The day he took his pillow and blanket and left their bed to sleep on the couch, she realised it had gone on long enough.

The next morning, she quietly handed him the divorce papers herself.

Really, it was the least she could do.

Weeks passed, months, seasons, years. She had her own desk at admin, complete with a computer and a stapler and a backboard to pin up personal pictures. The agents around her stuck up photographs with thumb tacks: pictures of their husbands, best friends, pictures of their children with bright eyes and sticky fingers.

She didn't have any of those.

Sometimes at night, lying on her side at the edge of the bed (she had the whole thing to herself now, but it felt wrong to use it all), she would tentatively allow herself to prod at her imagination the way you nurse a bruise in case it still hurts.

The images of the baby she never got to have would come to her if she called them, but their features were dimmer now, less definite. She couldn't grasp tight enough at them to see them clearly; they were muffled by static and vision blurred by tears.

Eventually, enough was enough. She forced the imaginings away, picturing herself shutting them away in a trunk, running her fingers over each one before setting them inside and clicking the lock.

Those had been dreams meant for someone else, for another woman in another life. They had been the wishes of a girl who always had a laugh in her throat and a joke on her lips, a girl who had thought she was brave, a girl who had thought she could save everyone.

It was time to let that girl go.

 

 

But the sun comes up after the moon every night, and winter turns into spring and things can change.

It had been seven years. Seven turns of the season, seven summers, seven winters. Seven birthdays reminding her that she was changing too as her skin felt looser over her cheekbones and she took to doing tai chi every morning to keep her joints as fluid as they had been fifteen years before.

Things change.

She went back in the field, _for Phil_ , she told herself over and over and over, a mantra playing in her head as she held the Bus controls firmly in her hands and took guns only when she needed them. _I'm doing this for Phil_. She let herself get in close, too close, and she allowed herself to make mistakes, when she had sworn it would never happen again.

And now, she had three kids. Her kids.

Well.

In truth, they were not hers. Not really. They all had parents, past and present, some of whom she looked more favourably upon than others. She hadn't raised these kids; she had never sat in the audience of a school play with her heart in her mouth with pride, had never pressed a kiss to a scraped knee or hummed a lullaby over their baby cradle.

And yet, they were _hers_.

Two of them had been her choice. The third had chosen her.

 

 

There was the boy, who had been delivered to her with a frown on his face and a box full of inventions and eyes that followed the sunlight as she flitted around him, chattering nineteen to the dozen. She had told him he would have to get his hands dirty in the field, to which he had responded with a slightly more polite version of _up yours_. And yet, when he had gotten his hands dirty, it had all been for her.

_I know you'd follow him to the grave._

_You're going to suffer for what you've done._

Loyal. Lionhearted. Stubborn as an ox, but he had put his entire world and his entire faith and trust in humanity squarely into her hands. He believed those hands were strong enough for that. And she was going to prove him right.

He didn't think he was brave. He thought he did what was necessary.

She understood that. But she still thought he was brave.

_I'll stay and help anyway._

 

 

There was the girl, who had always come half a heartbeat before the boy, until she didn't. The young girl with freshness in her face and a breathless enthusiasm for all she could see around her and an earnest yearning for knowledge. _Knowledge can be dangerous_ , she wanted to warn her. _Be careful_.

But she didn't want that light inside her big brown eyes to die away. So she kept quiet.

It was only on the day that she stepped off the plane with an alien virus burning in her veins the minute she took her eyes off of her, that she realised the warning would never be enough. Not for someone like her, who would do something like that for the people she loved.

She watched the girl fight, watched her fight her silent battles with biology and other people's blood and one breath for two people. She watched her battle with herself.

She wanted to save everyone.

_Keep trying._ _Keep trying to save everyone. We need you to do that._

_Just remember to save yourself too._

 

 

And then there was the other girl, the one that had chosen her and never looked back. If she had had to pick any one of the three as most like her, it would be this one.

It wasn't just her looks either, though there were times she looked at the determination gleaming in her dark eyes, or saw the bounce of her hair in the corner of the mirror, and wondered whether she was looking at another incarnation of herself.

No, it was more than that.

It was the fire that flickered inside her heart and the way she threw herself heart and soul into whatever she did: whether it was firing automatics, pulling pranks or making the ground roar beneath her feet. It was the way she got herself into trouble, then clawed at the earth above her head until she could scramble her way out again, and the way she loved fiercely and protectively and with all the strength she could muster.

_We already have two kids not cleared for combat on this Bus. You're adding a third._

She hadn't wanted this, not another one, not again. There had been a handful of times when she could see it happen in front of her eyes: in a basement with a hyperbaric chamber, in a vault with the walls shaking around her.

_It's you and me._

But it hadn't happened. This girl had always survived, fought her way back towards her. She was a survivor, a fighter and she always tried to have a joke on her lips and a laugh in her throat. She was beautiful.

_You can do this. I believe in you._

 

 

She believed in all three of them. 

She believed in their bravery and their selflessness and their fight. She had seen them at their worsts and at their bests and she had fought tooth and nail to protect them every step of the way. And even when she couldn't protect them, she had made damn sure they were equipped to do it for themselves (whether that was with an automatic, the space to grieve or gentle coaching in the art of selective truths).

She wasn't their mother. But they were her kids.

And they were  _beautiful_ .

 


End file.
